What has
befallen you?

: : : : : : : Why "falling"? It
strikes me as such an ugly way to describe the phenomenon. Surely there must be
a more pleasant way--any ideas?

: : : : : : I have heard the expression "falling"
to mean a woman has become pregnant. But I'm guessing that "falling in love" has
to do with this expression:

: : : : : : FALL HEAD OVER HEELS - "To be won over
or enter an activity so thoroughly as to be almost helpless. The head is normally
over the heels, so the term would seem to make more sense as 'heels over head,'
and indeed that is what it was. As early as the 14th century it appeared as 'hele
ouer hed' in a poem (quoted much later in 'Early English Alliterative Poems).
The 'Oxford English Dictionary' says the modern version is 'a corruption of heels
over head.'." From "The Dictionary of Cliches" by James Rogers (Ballantine Books,
New York, 1985).

: : : : : : I feel an Elvis song coming on...

: : : : : :
Can't Help Falling In Love

: : : : : : Wise men say only fools rush in
:
: : : : : but I can't help falling in love with you
: : : : : : Shall I stay
: : : : : : would it be a sin
: : : : : : If I can't help falling in love
with you

: : : : : : Like a river flows surely to the sea
: : : : : : Darling
so it goes
: : : : : : some things are meant to be
: : : : : : take my
hand, take my whole life too
: : : : : : for I can't help falling in love
with you

: : : : : : Like a river flows surely to the sea
: : : : : : Darling
so it goes
: : : : : : some things are meant to be
: : : : : : take my
hand, take my whole life too
: : : : : : for I can't help falling in love
with you
: : : : : : for I can't help falling in love with you

: : : : :
Under "fall" as a verb, the OED classifies "fall in love" with some other phrases,
such as "fall asleep" and "fall into laughter." The definition for that sense
of "fall" is "To pass suddenly, accidentally, or in the course of events, into
a certain condition."

: : : : Thanks to you both for the information. I still
don't like "fall", though. It has some pretty awful connotations, e. g., the fall
of Lucifer, falling from grace, et c., and we certainly don't need any more aspersions
on romantic love and its happy constituent, sex. More-over, "falling in love"
makes love seem like some kind of feculent morass that one would rather avoid.
In short, I'm still hoping for a more exalted and exalting phrase.

: : :
:
: : TO FALL IN LOVE - "To be sexually attracted to a person; to become very fond
of a thing. 'Fall' here did not originally have the present sense of dropping
from a higher state to a lower, but of passing suddenly from one state to another."
From "Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable" revised by Adrian Room (HarperCollinsPublishers,
New York, 1999, Sixteenth Edition).

: : My old paperback Roget's offers "set
one's affections on" and "make much of." These sound quaint, as does the traditional
"struck by Cupid's arrow," which involves violence and therefore probably won't
please you any better than those images of helpless collapse and feculent morasses.

:
My mother's generation (she was born in 1911) would say a man "admires" a woman
and vice versa if they fancied each other.

It's from the Indo European root,
phol which does mean literally "to fall" but also mean to happen. If you think
of the falling in love as something that has befallen you, then I think you get
a better sense of the word.

Personally I don't mind the conotation of falling.
Falling can be fun.